subject: Facebook Marketing : All The Ingredients For A Lethal Cocktail [print this page] Marketers put a lot of time and money into networking, building relationships and finding a niche to market to. Facebook marketing enables you to network all over the world without leaving your home or office, build business relationships by socializing and locate already established niche groups and individuals who are part of your target market.
Facebook is the biggest, most search-friendly website in the world in terms of targeting specific users. As a social networking site it offers unlimited amounts of free advertising to the marketing savvy. As a social media marketing tool facebook is a goldmine, with more than 250,000 new registrations every day, over 400million active users and 50% of users logging in every day, spending around 1hour on the site. Even as we write these figures have probably grown Facebook is massive.
Facebook marketing is made simple as Facebook provides access to valuable demographic information on individuals and groups. You can see where people live, what they are interested in and also information like whether they are married or not.
It is not only the immense numbers of users, but the features within Facebook that can really get your business marketing off to a flying start in the social networking arena. Applications, widgets, groups and fanpages are some of the free Facebook marketing tools available. Combine these with (cost-effective) targeted advertising for a lethal Facebook marketing cocktail!
For starters, you have your own profile where you can add friends to begin your networking venture. Although extremely important, facebook marketing extends far beyond simply adding friends, you can set up groups, plan and post events, set up Facebook fanpages, set up a shopping cart facility and hold contests and give out prizes.
Groups are a great way for loyal followers to belong to and feel part of a community. By having an electronic presence in the same mode as the user you are connecting on their level, therefore the relationship becomes more social than business. People do not go onto Facebook to be sold to, which is where many marketers go wrong. It is in your best interests to research first, perform searches within Facebook and have a Facebook marketing strategy before going full steam ahead.
As a business, you can utilize Facebook fanpages, which has the potential to be a lot more unique than a group. Facebook pages allow you to add applications and contain flash and HTML. Constant interaction is necessary to keep new fans flocking to the page. You can leave comments that Friend X is a fan of fanpage Y thus steering other friends on your direction. Other forms if interaction could be housing a poll and getting people to vote. You can also connect with other existing fanpages of a similar business and share friend lists to extend your network to your target market.
With a small budget you can start an ad campaign to compliment your Facebook marketing strategy. These are simple to setup and manage with as little as $5.
So if you think that you dont have time for Facebook marketing as part of your schedule for promoting your business, then think again because its free access to 400 million people who you can target based on nearly any criteria.
